Terms & Conditions

These Terms govern your use of Castlemaine Social (the “Service”). By accessing or using the Service (including our website at castlemaine.social), you agree to these Terms.

1) Who we are

Castlemaine Social is a community project created by locals living in Castlemaine. For legal and operational purposes, the Service is operated by Alpaca Travel Pty Ltd (ABN 29 608 409 990) (“we”, “us”, “our”).

2) What we do (and don’t)

castlemaine.social is a local platform built to help our community connect. It’s free to use, ad-free, and designed to shine a light on the people, clubs, events, and efforts that make Castlemaine a vibrant place to live.

3) Eligibility & accounts

• General-audience service: no strict minimum age; parents/guardians should supervise minors using the Service.
• Keep your account information accurate and secure. Don’t share credentials or impersonate others.
• Sign-in methods: email/password (managed by AWS Cognito), plus Google and Apple sign-in. We don’t receive your Google/Apple password.

4) Your content & permissions

You retain ownership of your content. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt for formatting/search, communicate, publish, and display your content to operate, promote, and improve the Service (including in emails, feeds, search, social shares, and embeds).

You can remove your own listings/pages; we may retain backups or logs as described in our Privacy Policy.

5) What is public; search engines; external reuse

This platform is designed so community information can be found online.

• Public: event listings (title, description, dates/times), venue/place pages and venue addresses/locations, organisation pages, tags/categories, images, and any organiser contact details you choose to include.
• Private: your account email, authentication credentials, and subscription settings.
• Search engines: public pages may be indexed and shared elsewhere.

6) Organisation & venue pages (directory rules)

• Pages should accurately describe the organisation, venue, or place, and include lawful contact details you’re authorised to publish.
• We may add badges, categories, or editorial notes to improve discoverability.
• We don’t endorse listed organisations or verify their claims; a listing is not an endorsement.
• If you believe a page about your organisation is inaccurate or unauthorised, email [email protected] with the URL and details; we’ll review and may request proof of authority.

7) Acceptable use

Do not use the Service to:

• break the law or others’ rights (IP infringement, defamation, privacy breaches, doxxing);
• post hateful, harassing, sexually exploitative, or inciting content;
• post medical/legal claims as facts, dangerous instructions, or misinformation;
• upload spam/malware or attempt to bypass security;
• collect or publish someone’s personal data without their consent;
• misrepresent events or organisations or impersonate organisers.

We may remove content, limit visibility, or suspend accounts that breach these Terms or create risk for others.

8) Moderation & complaints

We use a mix of automated checks and human volunteer reviews. We don’t promise to monitor everything, but we may act on reports at our discretion.

Report issues (copyright, defamation, privacy, safety) to [email protected] with URLs and details. We may temporarily restrict or remove content while we investigate.

9) Events are third-party; attend at your own risk

Event details are typically submitted by users/organisers and may change. We are not the organiser unless stated. Verify details with the organiser before attending. Participation is at your own risk.

10) Third-party links, tickets & payments

Links to organiser, ticketing, or membership sites are third-party. We don’t control those sites and aren’t responsible for their content, availability, pricing, or your transactions with them.

11) Anti-scraping & automated access

You must not access, monitor, or copy the Service using automated means (bots, scrapers, crawlers) except for standard search engine indexing that respects robots.txt.

For reuse, use our official feeds/API and follow §5.

12) Availability & changes

The Service is provided “as is”. Features may change or be discontinued without notice. We may suspend access for maintenance, abuse, or legal reasons.

13) Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information (including the public nature of listings and pages). By using the Service, you also agree to the Privacy Policy.

14) Liability (ACL preserved; cap = fees paid in last 12 months)

Nothing in these Terms limits rights you may have under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) that cannot be excluded.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we exclude all warranties, and our total liability arising out of or in connection with the Service is limited to the amount you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the claim (currently $0, as the Service is free). Where the ACL applies and our liability cannot be excluded, our liability is limited (at our option) to resupplying the services or paying the cost of having the services resupplied.

15) Indemnity

You indemnify us (and our volunteers, directors, and staff) against losses arising from your unlawful/infringing content, misuse of the Service, or breach of these Terms.

16) Termination

We may suspend or terminate your access (with or without notice where lawful) if you breach these Terms, create risk, or where required by law. You may stop using the Service at any time.

17) Intellectual property & branding

The Service, its design, and the Castlemaine Social name and logo are protected. Don’t use our branding without written permission.

18) Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Changes are effective when posted. For material changes, we’ll try to notify you (e.g., email or in-app) where practicable.

19) Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia, and the courts of Victoria have exclusive jurisdiction.

Definitions

• Content: anything you or others submit (text, images, links, data).
• Organisation page: a page for an organiser, host, club, festival organiser, business, or similar entity.
• Feeds/API: our official machine-readable outputs (e.g., RSS/ICS/API) that we may provide.
• Open licence (CC BY 4.0): limited to factual metadata we publish via feeds/API, with proper attribution and a link back; images, logos, and extensive descriptions are excluded unless marked.

Want to do more with our data?

Email [email protected]. We’re pro-community reuse—just ask first so we can keep it fair and respectful to contributors.